One of Columbia’s ‘best kept secrets.’ Can Rosewood sustain charm amid growth?
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Communities in Transition
Several of Columbia’s surrounding neighborhoods are changing with development and businesses. Follow our Communities in Transition series as we explore how these areas are growing.
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Like the seasons, Columbia is ever-changing.
In recent years, the capital city has seen its skyline refreshed, with new apartment towers — many geared toward University of South Carolina students or young post-grads — climbing ever upward on corners and avenues across town.
New restaurants, hotels and shops have popped up in the Vista and on Main Street and out at Harbison. The BullStreet District and its reimagining of the old State Mental Hospital site has found its groove with a host of new and upcoming developments. And USC, of course, has continued to spread its tendrils into seemingly every corner of the city center, with the university now topping 40,000 students on its Columbia campus.
While growth and change are inevitable and, in certain senses, exciting, it can all leave some longtime residents pining for the old Columbia. The classic Columbia. The authentic Columbia.
If you are looking for that classic version of Columbia — one where a longstanding, diverse neighborhood is dotted with legacy business, middle class homes and a noticeable-but-not-overbearing helping of new development — then head to the southeastern part of town. Head to Rosewood.
A ride up Rosewood Drive on a given day is a trip through a cross-section of Columbia. Headed up Rosewood from Assembly Street, you’ll spot Williams-Brice Stadium towering off to your right. (It’s one of the best views of the stadium in the city.) You’ll pass scores of locally owned businesses, from karate dojos to boutique grocers to little bakeries and beyond. You’ll see people queueing up outside the Rosewood Dairy Bar, waiting on milkshakes and burgers, or popping into Dano’s Pizza for the lunch special. (Two slices of cheese and a soft drink for $5, an unthinkably good deal in 2025.)
During the middle of the day you’ll spot kids joyfully bounding across the playground at Rosewood Elementary School, kicking soccer balls, swinging on the swingset, playing tag under the shade of a huge tree. A videoboard in front of the school intermittently scrolls a message saying, “We love our teachers.”
In the residential section of central Rosewood you’ll find many charming brick bungalows built in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, perfect starter homes for young families or older couples looking to scale down. Residents can be seen walking over to sprawling Owens Field Park, or to Memorial Stadium for a high school football game, or to the Hunter-Gatherer Hangar for pizza and a beer, as small planes descend into the Jim Hamilton-LB Owens Airport.
It’s not as highfalutin as Shandon or Wales Garden, not as cosmopolitan or in-flux as the downtown core. Rosewood, it seems, sort of charts its own path in the larger tapestry of the city.
Democratic state Rep. Seth Rose’s district includes Rosewood. The attorney and legislator, who represented the neighborhood as a member of Richland County Council before being elected to the State House, said Rosewood has an unmistakable character.
“I ask you, what neighborhood in Columbia has a disc golf course, a humongous park, a destination within the neighborhood such as the Hunter-Gatherer at an airport where you can watch airplanes land while you have dinner or drinks with friends, and you walked there?” Rose queried in a conversation with The State. “All these things are so unique to have internally in a neighborhood — not on the main drag, but in the neighborhood itself.
“Rosewood could quite possibly be one of the best kept secrets in Columbia.”
Now, as Rosewood continues to hold a unique space in an evolving city, neighborhood business owners, elected leaders and residents are hoping for development that complements one of Columbia’s classic neighborhoods. Whether it’s a desire for more bars and restaurants, the push for improved infrastructure or a nod toward housing affordability, there are eyes trained on both the present and the future in Rosewood.
Won’t you be my neighbor?
Jen Coody has lived in Rosewood for 22 years. The S. Maple Street resident jokes that she’s in “spitting distance” from the Rosewood Drive Publix shopping center to her north and the Hunter-Gatherer to her south. Coody said she’s watched S. Maple “grow up” in the last nearly quarter-century, as houses near hers that were once rundown or even abandoned have since been fixed-up and are now well-maintained along what she described as a family-friendly corridor.
“I can’t imagine living anywhere else than Rosewood,” Coody said. “The diversity of the people here is what I live for. We have so many people on our block, from so many different walks of life and so many different backgrounds. And I love that about it, and watching it come up over the last couple of decades, with the new businesses and even some of the student housing popping up. ... I think it keeps a little bit of youth in the neighborhood.”
This affection for Rosewood’s neighborly feel was echoed by Debbie McDaniel, a S. Edisto Street resident who has lived there for more than three decades. McDaniel, the former owner of Five Points stores Revente and Sid & Nancy, said she even got married in the backyard of her home in the neighborhood 35 years ago.
“I see it almost as a modern day Mayberry,” McDaniel said of Rosewood, noting it’s the type of place where you can ask a neighbor to borrow a cup of milk or an egg.
While housing prices in Rosewood, like in many places across the U.S., have climbed in recent years, the neighborhood remains comparably affordable when stacked up against other reasonably nearby areas. For instance, according to realtor.com, the median listing price for a home in central Rosewood is $289,000. Meanwhile, realtor.com indicated the median listing price for a home in the Shandon neighborhood in September was $570,000, while the median price for a September listing in Wales Garden was $500,000.
Columbia City Councilman Will Brennan represents District 3, which includes Rosewood. He took note of the comparative affordability in the neighborhood, and said city council will have to be creative in its thinking to ensure families can continue to have a fair shot at living near downtown in a city that’s in a growth pattern.
“We want people buy a starter home downtown, start a family, buy your next home, and just be great contributors to our city,” Brennan said. “That’s the goal.”
Brennan also noted that continuing to focus on park space in Rosewood — a valuable amenity in the neighborhood — and upgrading the area’s infrastructure will be key in the present and near future.
For instance, the city is in the midst of a multiphase initiative to put new water lines in the area. The first phase, which is wrapping up now with final pavement work, saw 40,000 linear feet of new water main from Owens Field to S. Maple, city officials said.
The second phase, which is just beginning, will see 35,000 linear feet of new water main from S. Maple to S. Ott, with construction expected to continue into next fall. And a third phase, which will see 40,000 feet of new water main from S. Ott to S. Kilbourne and Deerwood, is expected to begin in summer 2028. In all it will amount to roughly $40 million in new water lines.
Meanwhile, Rose said that he often hears from residents who would like to see more sidewalks in Rosewood, as well as better street lighting in some areas. While funding for projects like sidewalks can sometimes be a jurisdictional quagmire between city, county and state entities, Rose said he could foresee cooperation for Rosewood.
“I think we all have a role to play,” Rose said. “I would love to see more sidewalks, because it’s such a large neighborhood for safe walking and biking.”
Where classic and new businesses meet
A little more than two years ago, The Hoot bar opened at 2910 Rosewood Drive, just west of Dano’s Pizza and just east of Publix.
The Hoot, which offers creative cocktails and a vegan menu in a relaxed setting, is an effort from business partners Chelsea Ford, Jessica Ochoa, Will Green and the aforementioned Jen Coody. It’s been a thoughtful addition to Rosewood Drive’s eclectic business tableau.
Green, who was a longtime resident of the Rosewood neighborhood before his family moved to nearby Sherwood Forest, said when The Hoot’s partners were initially planning the establishment several years ago, Rosewood ultimately seemed like the right fit.
“The plan for The Hoot was always that it would be a neighborhood bar,” Green told The State. “We always wanted to do that. It made sense, since all of us live in and around Rosewood. ... We knew very early on that it was going to be in Rosewood, and that we wanted to be a neighborhood bar and not a downtown bar.”
In regard to businesses and restaurants, Rosewood is a mix of the classic and the emerging. For instance, there’s the Rosewood Dairy Bar, which has been around since 1942. Or the Cock N’ Bull Pub that’s been serving up British fare and welcoming neighbors and soccer fans for nearly 20 years.
At the same time, there has been a steady infusion of newer players, such as Masa Mexican Street Food, which opened at 2811 Rosewood Drive in 2024 and is the second location of the eatery following one in Camden. Masa is part of the 5th and Sloan mixed-use development, which in 2022 saw the former Rosewood Baptist Church transformed into modern new apartments.
There’s also the Sour and Salt Bakery that opened at 2761 Rosewood Drive in 2023. And, more recently, the opening of a Chex Wings and Grill at 2800 Rosewood, part of a burgeoning franchise.
Green said retail and restaurant growth in the neighborhood has been steady, but not overwhelming.
“It feels like new things are often coming to Rosewood, but it’s not a constant, constant, constant thing,” Green noted. “There isn’t huge amounts of turnover, but we are getting enough new stuff to make it interesting.”
For her part, Coody said she wants to see Rosewood develop as an even stronger food, drink and retail hotspot.
“I would love to see more local bars and restaurants and retail within walking distance of the residential hubs,” Coody said, matter-of-factly. “I would love to see more of the places like (S. Edisto Street vintage antique store) Refind that have popped up in the last couple of years, or like Masa.”
Green said he believes Rosewood remains one of Columbia’s quintessential neighborhoods, one where a robust sense of community can be fostered in multiple ways.
“I think it’s a place that has everything that you want out of neighborhood,” Green said. “It’s almost an idyllic place. You’ve got schools and you’ve got grocery stores and you’ve got bars and restaurants and you’ve got parks and athletic fields.
“You can really participate in everything you like in Columbia in Rosewood, in a certain way.”
This story was originally published October 22, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
